LAS VEGAS – It felt “less like a concert, and more like being invited into someone’s living room,” one local critic wrote of Mary J. Blige’s My Life, My Story residency at Dolby Live at Park MGM, which opened May 1st. And oh, what an enchanted living room it is!
Lighting designer Ryan Healey of 22 Degrees, and set designer Shaun Motley are providing an engaging, richly textured setting for the nine-time Grammy winner as she takes fans on a 42-song, nearly two-hour journey through her legendary career. Artfully balancing lighting and scenic elements, the production flows in harmony with the beloved star as she performs hits like “Family Affair,” “I Can Love You,” and “Real Love,” often accompanied by enthusiastic sing-alongs and punctuated by stories from Blige herself.
Working on a roughly 70-foot-wide section (not counting SL and SR IMAG screens) of a 120-foot-wide stage, the designers created a vista that was welcoming and personal while also being bold and versatile enough to reflect the many facets of their client’s music and persona.
“We knew the show had to shift between big spectacle and very intimate moments,” said Healey. “Because of this, it was important we could turn different parts of the set on and off.
That approach helped create a cohesive picture. We used pixel tape on the stage left and right staircases, and edge lighting along the entire balcony and band risers to create this sense of cohesion. Vanish screens and blow through fixtures upstage created added depth.
“This gave us the flexibility to build looks that were fully lighting driven, fully content driven, or a mix of both,” he continued. “The scale of the stage was a real challenge in terms of filling the space within budget, but I’m happy with how we used the fixtures to make it feel as large as possible.”
Chief among those fixtures were 110 COLORado PXL Bar 16 motorized battens, 54 Color STRIKE M motorized strobe-washes, and 59 Rogue R2X Wash IP units. Making up most of the residency’s lighting, the 223 CHAUVET Professional fixtures were supplied by Volt Lites, a “huge supporter” of many of Healey’s projects.
Describing the role of the COLORado PXL Bar 16, the “real workhorse in the rig,” Healey said, “They were spread throughout the set to help ground it. On the deck level, they sat on the downstage side of the staircases left and right, in front of the band risers, and all the way upstage at the base of the video wall. On the second level, they were mounted along the back of the scenic balconies on both sides, and across the bridge in front of the video screen. They also were located on the lighting ladders acting as caps to the SL & SR side of each video screen. They gave us soft, washy looks with a lot of pixel control, but they could also zoom in and create a very crisp beam. That let us use full groups as light curtains for certain numbers.”
In keeping with the vision of creating a varied, continuously fresh lighting narrative, Healey did not activate the COLORado PXL Bar 16 units on the vertical tower until the show’s second act. “We wanted to introduce a new lighting language for that part of the show. It was great being able to play between the bars as vertical elements and as horizontal elements across the set. They also created some great moments for the dancers, especially on the bridge, where we could silhouette them or have them cut through big beam looks and throw shadows out into the house.”
Healey also varied the way the Color STRIKE Ms in the rig were deployed, bringing them to the forefront for the more hip-hop driven songs. “We don’t use them at all in the first number, and then when the beat drops in the second number, we open everything up,” he said. “Much of that impact comes from the Strike Ms. We could run them as one large system to define structure and geometry, or use them more sparingly for accents and small, twinkling moments.”
The Color STRIKE M units on the uppermost part of the rig were arranged in an irregular pattern that contrasted nicely with the straight form of the linear fixtures below them. Laid out with a vanishing point that moves toward the audience, the overhead units spread out as they approach upstage and offstage, aligning them with the Color STRIKE Ms on the lighting ladders between the screens, so when they all play together it reads as one large angular arch.
“It was also important to fill the overhead left and right of the side screens at an angle that matches the set,” said Healey. “This helped complete the picture. When all the strobes are on, you really see the shape and angularity of the rig. When we lean into the profiles, the overhead becomes more ambiguous and can shift with the look. In the end, we were able to get the show in the door quickly and still have an overhead rig that supports the overall look in a strong way.”
The Rogue fixtures in the rig, were also deployed strategically, not coming on until the third act. “It was tough holding that back, going through two full acts without any blow through, but it made the payoff at the end of the show much stronger,” said Healey, who thanked Jeff Obrien of Volt Lites, Harrison Lippman, Matt Shimamoto, Scot Roper II, and LD Gina Manago.
Healey noted that programmer, Joe Holdman, has been an invaluable collaborator. “Without Joe this show would not look the way it does,” he said. “Joe has an incredible ear for music and is the perfect person to do this type of show with. Not only is he musically inclined, he also has a great eye. He can hear me key on to give a note, and by the time I start speaking, he’s already done it. He was my right hand through this entire process.”
Also coming in for praise was the show’s director, Mark Swanhart. “Shaun and I worked closely with Mark, who is a great visionary, to build interludes that could feel intimate and silhouetted, or hit hard straight into the next number with a big bass drop and a full look snapping on,” said Healey. “I’m especially happy with how we move between songs, particularly in the medleys, which range from four songs up to sixteen.
“A lot of Mary’s material is very lyrical and pulls you in, so in those moments it made sense to pull things back, let the set disappear, or lean into a light curtain effect upstage of her,” continued Healey. “On the other side, she has huge records that really open the door for strobes and pixel work. We rarely do the same thing twice.”
About CHAUVET Professional
CHAUVET Professional offers innovative professional lighting fixtures for the production and touring market as well as permanent installation in theaters, hospitality venues, cruise ships, clubs, television and architainment applications. For more information, please visit www.chauvetprofessional.com
Photo Credit: @ginajoyphoto
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